We are pleased to publish the video of the Masterclass about the Siege of Tobruk during WWII, lectured by Mr. Craig Tibbitts, Senior Historian at the Australian War Memorial. A lecture hold within the framework of the Master’s Degree in Military History of INISEG, the International Institute for Studies on Global Security.

The Siege of Tobruk in 1941 can be understood from two perspectives. On the one hand, it was the Germans who attempted to take the fortress in April, and who subsequently besieged it, bombarding it and attempting to cut off its maritime communications while preparing for the final assault. On the other hand, it was the British who besieged it, as their lines of communication to Egypt were much more secure and Tobruk was never completely unsupplied, while Rommel’s Afrika Korps, threatened both from the front and from the rear and attacked several times, was ultimately forced to return to its starting point.

Mr. Craig Tibbitts has worked at the Australian War Memorial since 2000, initially in the Research Centre where he was Senior Curator of Official and Private Records. During much of that time he was also in charge of administration and research for the Memorial’s Roll of Honour.  In 2016, he joined the Military History Section as Research Project Manager for an independent history of the Vietnam War’s medical legacies. The resulting book, The Long Shadow, Australia’s Vietnam Veterans Since the War, by Dr Peter Yule, was published in October 2020.

Mr. Tibbitts has studied the management of information, records, libraries and archives at University of Canberra from 1999, graduating with a Bachelor of Information Management in 2001.  He has subsequently studied military history at University of New South Wales (Australian Defense Force Academy) and is currently writing his thesis on psychological war wounds relating to Australian forces. His main areas of research are:

  • Military Medicine (including psychology);
  • The Vietnam War;
  • The Great War (Western Front);
  • WWII (North Africa & the Mediterranean);
  • New Zealand Wars (1845-1872).

Blog GRIP will keep publishing a selection of Masterclasses and lectures on military history and armed conflicts, with a special emphasis, albeit not exclusive (as this lecture shows), on the Vietnam War, direct consequence and legacy of the First Indochina War, a conflict taught by Professor Juanjo Alarcón in the Master’s Degree in Contemporary Military Conflicts, whose video presentation is also available on Blog Grip. Incidentally, Prof. Juanjo Alarcón is also the host of these lectures.

We really hope that this series of selected lectures may spark your interest in the topics presented in each one of them. And since they are all part of the Area on Security and Defense and the Master’s Degree in Military History of INISEG, we provide you with the links to INISEG’s academic offer directly related to the lectures we publish: